Apricot blossoms

Last spring we had the entire yard redesigned by Paul Henderson, a local landscape designer, who showed up at our house with green Wellies and a fabulously plummy British accent. I showed him a few pictures of Japanese gardens, irregular stone paths, and such, but told him I didn’t want a Japanese theme park. I wanted something that used native Virginia species with a few exotics to hint at Japanese principles. I didn’t want cherry trees and a koi pond, as pretty as they are. I’ll leave the hardcore stuff to Hillwood Gardens. I wanted birds to visit, some fruit, and a place to plant a vegetable garden. And I wanted something that looked good all year.

We ended up with a lovely garden that features an arbor of apple serviceberry trees, and includes (among other things) a stand of dogwoods, several different kinds of azaleas, a wide variety of evergreens including a Japanese cedar, camellias, tricolor beeches, a redbud, a witch-hazel bush, highbush blueberry shrubs, clumping bamboo, and a dwarf Chinese apricot tree.

The apricot wasn’t in his original plan. Paul had a habit of showing up with new babies: “I thought this would be fabulous in this spot.” The tree was Charlie Brown—pathetic, a little stick thing that Paul said would fruit. I thought it looked a bit wan and bet it wouldn’t survive the winter. I didn’t even think about what the flowers would look like…

…until two days ago, when my little apricot tree exploded in white blossoms. I put my nose to the blossoms this morning and they smelled of very much like my favorite ume trees in Japan, the aroma of which is a combination of bubblegum and tea roses and talcum powder. This tree is a different species and, if Paul is right, will give me apricots. We’ll see about the fruit, but it has already earned its keep in eye candy.

6 comments

The photos look fabulous, and I just LOVE ume flowers and I like eating them too (not the flowers but the UME). Wasn’t it windy the other day? Everything at the house was blown EVERYWHERE… I guess this means SPRING is finally here?

Hi Madam,
This is my first comment.
I’m from Japan and I’ve been in Washington D.C. for six months.
I ran into your page by accident when I was searching for what happened to Daruma market. You may know they are closed for good unfortunately.
Anyway, your pictures look really clear and beautiful so they remind me of my hometown. I miss Japanese apricot but I’m excited to see cherry blossoms blooming at Tidal Basin.